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Open Source Drug Discovery Prompts a Fundamental Heart Failure Breakthrough
An anonymous reader writes "Case-Western researchers, led by Saptarsi Haldar MD., have made a fundamental discovery that could prevent heart failure after reviewing the "chemical recipe" for a cancer-treating molecule made open source by Jay Bradner MD. (whose TED Talk articulates the open source approach to drug discovery) This cross-discipline discovery, which was published in the August 2013 issue of CELL, is a fundamental breakthrough in heart failure research, and highlights the value of an open source approach outside of software development."
What's this?! Everyone jumping on the Socialist-Commie-Pinko Open movement?!?
WTF!
Before you know it, IP with be severely weakened and all of us will have increased standard of living - except for the poor poor billionaires!
Won't someone think of the billionaires?!
Without the billionaires lording over us, what will inspire us?
We need IP to keep up the carriers to entry! We need to impede progress in order to preserve the billionaires! Our way of life will be destroyed!
Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have made a fundamental discovery relevant to the understanding and treatment of heart failure
It does not say "prevent" heart-failure, anywhere in the article. It is implied in the article that treatment could be greatly improved by this therapy, however, I'm not sure where the line in the summary about prevention comes from.
What's the deal with all the crazy vegans around here lately? Go to your local hippie store and look at the vegans. Then go to your local CrossFit and look at the paleo eaters. Which group looks healthier to you?
A cake made without eggs or butter? Who in their right mind would eat such an abomination?
What does it mean for a molecule to have source?
It can refer to what Eric S. Raymond referred to as the "bazaar" model, or it can refer to a license that grants rights to the public analogous to those listed in the DFSG or FSF definition of free software. I see hints of bazaar in the transcript of the TED talk:
And here I see the spirit of publishing a discovery instead of locking it up behind secrecy and exclusive rights:
This leads up to the benefits of bazaar and publication:
And finally, a direct answer to your question as to what is the source code of a molecule:
So does the summary, but the paper is behind Cell's paywall, so it really isn't all that open-source, is it?
Most heart disease is caused by eating animal products (which humans aren't supposed to eat), lack of exercise, and smoking.
That was considered very wise in 1982. Today we know that the main nutritional problem is excess fructose, which the liver turns straight into triglycerides, which stick to the arterial walls, and form nasty, sticky plaques. But go ahead and guzzle agave nectar - it's pure fructose, vegan, and trendy. :P
Exercise, sleep, low stress, and of course not smoking are also key components to a healthy lifestyle (diet is just one part).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Dilhole... Humans are omnivores - we can eat anything. Well not as much anything as say goats (who will eat tin cans), but pretty much anything.
The only thing drug patents do is make drug companies rich. If we as a nation (USAians here) truly wanted to maximize progress in medical treatment, we'd nationalize all drug research. Don't even bother arguing that profit motivates progress. The overwhelming majority of researchers and engineers are motivated by the joy of success, not crushing the opposition and getting filthy rich.
As we've seen over and over again in nearly every technology area, the greatest progress occurs either in "open source" areas or when patents expire and everyone can innovate.
(Yes, I'm a socialist. No, I don't think that in any way invalidates the fundamental claims I'm making here.)
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
When it comes to science, there is no need to license a discovery to make it available to all. Simply publish and don't attempt to patent it. Scientific knowledge is public once published.
Absolutely. And guess what would happen to any drug company that did not patent their drugs? How would they be able to compete with companies that did not have to pay the hundreds of millions in research to get the drug approved? The only reasonable alternative to patent systems that I can see are (a) trade secrets, which means that the discovery is not made available to all, or (b) go back to a patron system where a generous benefactor foots the bill for research, in which case the research that the scientists do is only what the benefactor wants, which may be the ultimate cure for baldness or a little dick. I think patents are better than the alternatives. That is, unless you can come up with a better idea. Just be sure to think it through...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
With 3D printing edging into device manufacturing space, just about everything is going to face free/public competition, not the least of which will be energy production. Big business with its dependency on having the public dependent on them has its days numbered. I look forward to those days... I wonder if I will live that long?
No you won't.
Because 3D printing isn't going to replace anything much beyond the utensil selection in Walmart for the foreseeable future. Hell, you'll be lucky if you can shoot yourself in head with a 3D printed object in your lifetime. You'd be most likely to blow up your hand and have to go the the hospital and get treated with stuff that's been woven, extruded, grown, spun or glued.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
trade secrets, which means that the discovery is not made available to all
Which is extraordinarily difficult for drugs, because everyone will simply buy a bunch of their competitors' pills, and figure out exactly what they're made of down to atomic detail. A typical university chemistry lab could do this in a few days. There are some aspects that are more tricky - the exact packaging is sometimes key to getting the drug absorbed by the body at the desired rate, and the chemical synthesis can be messy - but figuring these out is still way cheaper than coming up with your own drug.
Is it going to help or hurt?
Yes, it's created a lot of interest but that's pretty standard for a molecule that hits a relatively unique molecular pathway. What has happened in the past is that as soon as the basic science gets firmed up, the drug companies wander it and start trailing slightly different molecules (which are patentable). That's where the big money goes.
By explicitly opening up access to the molecule early, you might find more applications faster and perhaps get more people working on the same receptor system, but the end result is that the drug that treats multiple myeloma will look slightly different from the one that treats heart failure or is used as a male contraceptive. The drug makers will work hard to make them as task specific as possible so they can charge more and control things better. The only possible 'good' outcome (for the open source concept here) would be that the 'generic' bromodomain receptor blocker (JQ1) works equally well for all, doesn't do anything bad in humans (an unlikely scenario - most promising drug candidates die here along with countless dogs, monkeys and other critters) and can be reasonably easily synthesized by the Indian and Chinese generic drug manufacturers and they make a shitload of it.
Which will get blocked at the border so save us from commie chemicals.
Grump again.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Well, first of all? Who are these commercial activities you speak of who supposedly claimed quality and value were ONLY achievable via commercial enterprise?
I can't think of a single business making that claim today? Clearly, technological progress means that ideas starting out as massive, costly endeavors become mundane with time. I remember when recordable CDR technology was brand new, for example. The only people possessing CD writer drives were generally government contractors and educational institutions because the drives themselves were thousands of dollars, with blank media as expensive as $25-30 per disc. They only recorded at 1x speeds, and were all external drives, because any vibration during the recording process ruined the disc. So you had to carefully place the recorder in a spot where it wouldn't get bumped or shake. That's just a small example of a technology everyone takes for granted today. (Can you even buy a CD-ROM reader that doesn't include writing functionality today, if you wanted to??)
It's this same principle that caused space travel (once thought so complicated and expensive, only Federal government could do anything with it) to become privatized today. It's the reason individuals are now doing DNA splicing in their own homes as hobbies and why 3D printing is becoming something you can do on your own with equipment you build yourself.
There will always be a use for the resources and capabilities of big business (and arguably even government, at a tier above that -- as a way to get a VERY large project completed by the will of the taxpayer in a certain time-frame). But whatever these entities come up with with eventually trickle down to a more manageable size and scope, suitable for interested individuals to undertake.
A back handed benefit is if the rest of the world considers those conditions a thing of the past while Americans are still dying of them. That would certainly bring demands for change that couldn't be fended off for long.
I do find it interesting that the free trade cheerleaders in DC stop cheering when retired people want to freely buy inexpensive prescription drugs from Canada.
The "patron system" is already in place - the gov't foots the bill for nearly all the research, and private corporations add the last 1% of the bill before patenting and reaping 100% of the profits.
Perhaps government patents would be a solution. Let the government license its patents freely to education and research but take a percentage of profits for corporate use.
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The first patent act was in 1790. The Constitution only permitted Congress to have patents. Congress had to decide to do it.
Bullshit. The vast majority of spending necessary to turn this discovery into a drug hasn't even been started yet. Even in cases where the drug is invented and patented in academia (~15-20% of drugs, and we won't know if that has happened here with JQ1 for at least another 5-10 years), universities license the molecule to a biotech or pharma to move it through clinical trials. The NIH is starting to spend more on translational research (the preclinical/clinical stuff Pharmas typically do), but it will be at least another decade before we can tell if the NIH is doing a better job at it than Pharmas.